Often the fruit harvest is larger than the family's stomachs and you have to preserve part of the harvest. A popular method is the extraction of fruit juice. These juices are a real treasure because you know exactly what's in the bottle. They also taste incomparably aromatic and score points with their high vitamin content.
How can you boil down juice and preserve it?
To preserve juice, you should either pasteurize it by heating it to 72 degrees and pour it into sterilized bottles, or preserve it in a preserving pot or oven. After cooling, store the juice in a cool, dark place.
Juicing
There are two ways to get the delicious fruit juice:
- Cooking method: To do this, put the fruit in a saucepan, cover it with water and cook until soft. Then strain the fruit through a sieve and collect the juice.
- Steam juicer: Purchasing such a device is recommended if you want to regularly cook medium amounts of juice yourself. Fill the lower container of the juicer with water, then put the juice container on top and the fruit basket with the fruit on top of it. Everything is closed with a lid and heated on the stove. The rising water vapor causes the fruits to burst and the juice comes out.
Cooking juices
Juices oxidize quickly when exposed to air, lose their valuable properties and spoil. Therefore, they must be used quickly or preserved by pasteurization.
Heat reliably kills the germs in the juice. When it cools down, a vacuum is created so that no external bacteria can get into the juice.
- First, sterilize the bottles in boiling water for ten minutes. Be sure to heat the glass and liquid together so that the containers do not crack.
- Boil the juice to 72 degrees for twenty minutes and pour it into the bottle using a funnel. There should be a margin about three centimeters wide at the top.
- Close the container immediately and turn the bottle upside down for five minutes.
- Turn over and let cool at room temperature for a day.
- Then check whether all lids are tightly closed, label them and store in a cool, dark place.
Preserve fruit juice
Optionally, you can cook the juice in a preserving pot or in the oven:
- Sterilize the bottles in hot water for ten minutes and pour the juice through a funnel.
- Place it on the rack of the canner and pour in enough water so that half of the food is in the water bath.
- Soak at 75 degrees for 30 minutes.
- Remove and let cool at room temperature.
- Check that all lids are tightly closed, label them, store in a cool, dark place.
Tip
You can boil the straight juice obtained with sugar to give it a pleasant sweetness. Why not experiment with spices such as chili or cinnamon and give your juices an exquisite note.
